My research interests center generally on issues in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and logic.

Beginning with a dissertation on necessity and possibility, in different places I have allowed that there are “possible worlds,” and that possible worlds have a certain utility. However, I claim, possible worlds do not ground modal truth. Rather, grounds for modal truth are to be found in the non-modal way ordinary things and properties are. This thesis has pushed me, in recent times, to thinking about grounds more generally. I now see the approach to necessity and possibility as one component of a more general approach to objects—thus the working title of the core project, Properties, Possibilities, and Ordinary Things: Towards the Pleasures of Platonism Without the Pain (working draft).

Publications central to this project (with links for CSUSB access) are,

• “In Defense of Linguistic Ersatzism.” Philosophical Studies 80 (1995): 217-242.
• “Things and De Re Modality.” Nous 34 (2000): 56-84.
• “Worlds and Modality.” The Philosophical Review 102 (1993): 335-61.
• “Modality” in the Continuum Companion to Metaphysics (2012)

Related work includes,

• "What's So Bad About Infinite Regress?" (draft)
• “New Directions in Metaphysics.” Tony Roy and Matthew Davidson, Continuum Companion to Metaphysics (2012)
• “Natural Derivations for Priest, An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic.”  Australasian Journal of Logic (2006)
• "More Natural Derivations for Priest." Tony Roy and Jonathan Fry, (draft)
• “On Permutation in Simplified Semantics.” Greg Restall and Tony Roy, Journal of Philosophical Logic (2009)
• "Notes Toward Completion of the American Plan." (very rough draft)
• "Making Sense of Relevant Semantics." (draft)